Cross-Processing Kodak’s NEW Ektachrome Color Reversal Film

As some of you may know, Eastman Kodak Co. & Kodak Alaris recently announced the re-introduction of their world-famous Ektachrome film stocks in 35mm, Super 8 film, and 16mm film stocks. Consumers everywhere have already started raving about the film stock that so many renown photographers have praised over the years including Spike Lee and many other directors/filmmakers.

As a photographer myself who was excited to try out Ektachrome for the first time ever (I am 20 years old so I never tried the original Ektachrome unfortunately) I decided that I would cross-process the film using the C-41 Method. Before making this decision I was inspired because of an article I read while researching Kodak’s Ektachrome film and found that many filmmakers used to purposefully cross-process this film stock just for the effect that it would provide. When I learned about this I decided I would cross-process the film before I process it with the recommended, E6 method.

All photos © Moloney Creative Agency.

Let’s take a look at some of the results:

Features

After cross-processing Kodak’s new Ektachrome film, I’ve come up with three main conclusions that you may notice. The first being its noticeable high contrast effect that can be seen throughout the gallery above. The next two features pertain to the rendering of colors in the film when cross-processed. We’ll take a look at the color tint and also the tones that the new Ektachrome is portraying.

High Contrast

Take a look at the photo above. What do you notice?

One of the first things I noticed when looking at my photos after cross-processing was the high contrast in many of the exposures. This is not uncommon when cross-processing films because you will not be able to manipulate the colors perfectly; however, it adds a unique effect that is still visible.

As you can see in the photo above, the shadows are a nice dark tone, but our highlights are really blown put which could be really nice if that’s what you are looking for.

Color Tint

The next thing I noticed while looking at many of the images is the change in color. One of the most noticeable changes is the blue-green color shift. As you can see in the examples provided, there is a bit of a green-tone in the shadows and more of a blue-tone in the highlights, especially in the sky.

Below you can see how the blue really shines through while working with natural skylight.

Next, take a look below and you can see an example of a green-dominant shift. Although I was working with natural light we still see a heavy green-tone to the whole slide.

Regardless of what you’re shooting, if you’re going to be cross-processing I would be aware that you will see some of this color shift.

Below you can see another example of a color shift that happen while cross-processing film. Find out how you can obtain these results here.

 

Tone

Finally, tone is our last feature that was very noticeable after cross-processing Ektachrome. When shooting film, especially for movies, tone means everything. You don’t want to be shooting winter scene with film you would use on the beach, nor would you want to shoot a tropical scene with film you would use in a snowy setting. With that being said, knowing which film to shoot with when can be hard, but it is a very useful skill to have.

Kodak’s Ektachrome is one of the best films in the world because of its unique tone and many filmmakers choose to use this all the time. Ektachrome adds a special feeling to many movies and they would not have been the same if they were shot on other film stocks. Take a look at some stills below that were shot on Kodak Ektachrome:

 

 

Watch the full video for Butterfly Effect below:

Because this stock is so well-regarded many filmmakers choose to cross-process this film because of the endless effects and unique color tones. For more information on Kodak’s new Ektachrome, be sure to check out our announcement article here and also read more on Kodak’s website here.

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